Still Mr. & Mrs.

by Mary McBride

  She sat down at the table to consult the blue binder. There was a section entitled Foods to Avoid. No pork chops there, and it seemed the only vegetable Daisy Riordan didn't like was brussels sprouts. Bobby, on the other hand, looked at all vegetables as if they were radioactive and posed him some sort of lethal threat. She'd had a devil of a time getting him to eat right when they were together. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. If this whole thing turned into the disaster she was expecting, at least Bobby would be getting proper nutrition for a couple of weeks.

  Earlier, while he was accosting her in the bedroom, she'd had a chance to look at him more closely. He probably had dropped some weight. Up close, his face seemed slightly drawn, especially around the mouth, and the creases at the corners of his eyes were definitely more pronounced. She hadn't seen him since the day she'd left D.C., even though he'd been in L.A. twice on presidential visits. Angela had made sure she'd been nowhere to be found during those two visits because she was afraid he'd try to convince her to come back to D.C., back to him.

  To try again. To wear her heart down to a nub trying, when he had no intention of trying, himself. He had stunned her this morning, really thrown her for a loop, when he'd said, “Do you want to talk about Billy?” Even that was a huge improvement from his standard refusal to discuss his brother's death. Instead of falling apart the way she had, Angela wished that she had pressed him on the subject.

  “Sure. Let's talk about Billy,” she should have said, daring him to expose even a micron of his feelings. “You go first.”

  Ha! Bobby's idea of a talk would have been a brief, tight-lipped acknowledgment, two sentences max, that, yes, his brother was dead, and yes, it hurt like hell, but now let's just get on with life, Ange, okay?

  No. It wasn't okay. Not anymore.

  Maybe at first, when Bobby's emotional reticence had stood in such stark, strong contrast to her opera-buffoonish clan. Maybe at first, when it seemed so wonderful to be able to depend on Bobby's silent strength to pick her up whenever she fell apart. Maybe, too, when Billy was alive and could “interpret” Bobby's moods for her. Certainly not later, though, after Billy died, and Angela learned the hard truth about rocks. They were impenetrable, immutable, and cold.

  Even as she was thinking that, Bobby sauntered into the kitchen, giving a believable impression of a warm human being. “Want to take a look at this map, Ange, and see if you can read it?” He slid a small page of lined notebook paper onto the table in front of her.

  The sight of his familiar scrawl made her throat close for a second. He'd written her a love note once—just once—and tucked it in her cosmetic case, where she'd be certain to find it on the road with the First Lady. Where had she been? San Francisco? San Diego? Wherever, it had taken her about an hour to read the little note, what with his terrible penmanship and her eyes flooded with tears.

  His map wasn't so bad, she decided, even if his o's and e's were difficult to distinguish and he rarely, if ever, crossed his t's. “It's a big house,” she said. “What's this?” She pointed to a square on the second-story diagram. “The scrun perch?”

  He growled deep in his throat. “Screen porch. It's over the den on the east side, probably with access to Mrs. Riordan's bedroom. We'll need to take a look at the lock in there as soon as possible.”

  “If she ever leaves her room,” Angela said with a sigh. “How long has her husband been dead?”

  “A couple years. Let's see. The president came out here for Senator Riordan's funeral in ‘ninety-nine, I think. I remember I stayed in Chicago, doing the advance work for his speech there.”

  “She must be lonely.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It's tough being left alone.”

  Her gaze flashed to his face, where she expected to see cold accusation in every feature. How dare you walk out on me? But his expression was neutral for the most part, perhaps slightly hopeful. You left me first, she was tempted to say. You left me emotionally. You froze me out. I lost Billy, too, and you wouldn't say a word to comfort me. Not a single word.

  But Angela held her tongue. It wouldn't have done any good. She slid the little diagram across the table. “You better give this to Doug before he chews his way through a case of antacids.”

  “I guess you're right.”

  He picked up the map and left her sitting there alone. A rock couldn't even begin to know the meaning of the word.

  Daisy Riordan—Margaret, as she habitually thought of herself—parted the Venetian blinds with her fingers and watched her new employee, Robert, pick his way through her neglected dahlia bed at the far side of the backyard, then slip into the brush on his way to the surveillance trailer. He was going to get cockleburs on his black wool socks and in the cuffs of his gray gabardine trousers. It would serve him right, the young fool.

  She made a small tsk sound, ran a finger across one slat to check for dust, then closed the blinds and went back to the high four-poster bed she'd shared with her husband during their fifty-three years of marriage. The mattress creaked comfortingly as she climbed in, drew an afghan over her legs, then settled her head on the pillow and closed her eyes.

  Idiots. All of them. Her son included. Especially William, since he knew her. How could they think for one minute that she'd believe their silly masquerade? Why did people assume, because she was seventy-six years old, that she wasn't as intelligent as she'd been at twenty-six or even at sixteen, for that matter? At sixteen, she'd fallen madly and wisely in love with Charles William Riordan, future senator from the state of Illinois, future father of the president of the United States. She hadn't been a stupid girl, and she wasn't stupid now.

  Rolling her head to the right, she looked at Charles's photograph, smiling back at her from its silver frame. “You never thought I was stupid,” she muttered.

  Charles had never considered her difficult, either, the way most people did. Or even if he had, he stood up to her while relishing her opinions and her sense of independence. She missed that. Oh, how she missed it. There was only Muriel now to take a stand, to talk back to her, to give her a good fight. Otherwise all she ever heard was “Oh, yes, Mrs. Riordan” or “Whatever you say, Mrs. Riordan” or “Yes, ma'am.”

  She worried about her old friend and nemesis, who'd undergone chemotherapy this spring and whose hair was only now beginning to grow back. And with a vengeance, it seemed. Muriel—she had refused to call her Bootsie half a century ago when her friend was young and somewhat attractive, and she certainly wasn't going to do it now that the woman was a withered old hag.

  Daisy considered herself one, as well. She rarely looked in mirrors these days because she was appalled by the face that looked back at her. Her mouth seemed to pull down at the corners more than ever before, making her appear bitter, almost terminally disgusted. Her color always seemed off, and there was no shine in her eyes. They were lackluster and pale as a winter sky.

  Closing them again, she listened to the tick of the clock on the nightstand. A lawn mower droned somewhere in the distance. A blue jay screeched in the sycamore just outside her window.

  “Not much exercise,” indeed! That comment had merely cemented her belief that Robert Holland was a Secret Service agent; only a man wearing a gun would have had the audacity to say something like that to Daisy Riordan. Neither one of the Itos would have dared speak with such insolence. Of course, that's why she couldn't stand the couple. They never talked back. The more she berated them, looking for a good fight, the more they smiled and bowed and scraped. They dulled her wits, those agreeable people. She was glad to see them go.

  Daisy thought she might actually enjoy having the Hollands in her house awhile. She had no intention of exposing them for the agents they truly were. Not right away, at least. Let William think he'd pulled the wool over her pale, ancient eyes. It might do him good.

  She sighed. It was silly, having all these people on the premises to protect her when she didn't give a hoot whether she lived or died. With Charles gone, life really
wasn't all that interesting anymore.

  5

  When the First Lady was out of town, William Riordan usually ate his dinner at his desk in the Oval Office. If he dined alone in their private quarters, it was always too tempting to turn on the television to listen to what the so-called pundits were saying about him these days, thus guaranteeing not only indigestion but insomnia as well. Unfortunately for him, he hadn't inherited his mother's thick hide.

  With a glance toward his paunch, he thought he hadn't inherited her trim figure either. This evening, while he ate one of the low-fat, low-cholesterol, low-taste meals his wife insisted they serve him, and while he attempted to read the first draft of a speech he was due to make next week at the UN, his mind kept drifting west to Hassenfeld.

  Now that he was halfway through his second term, he found himself thinking more and more about the eventual destination of his personal papers. The obvious choice was his birthplace, Hassenfeld. Ye gods. He'd heard that name today every hour on the hour. What a backwater. Jimmy Carter, in all his modesty, had established his presidential library in lowly Plains, but William Riordan wondered if perhaps he couldn't work something out with his alma mater, the University of Chicago, instead. He'd much prefer his legacy to be enshrined on the shores of Lake Michigan than at the edge of a field of test corn.

  Why his mother insisted on staying in Hassenfeld was a mystery to him. She had never really seemed to like the place. She had never really seemed to like anything or anyone, for that matter, including him, her only child.

  Over the years, he'd come to the conclusion that they were simply on different wavelengths, if not different planets. Perhaps if he spent more time with her, they could reach some sort of amiable adult relationship, but the problem was that in his mother's presence, at the mere sound of her voice, his behavior immediately regressed to that of an incompetent and petulant ten-year-old.

  “Your mother didn't mean it, William.” Now there was a sentence they should have needlepointed on a pillow, as many times as it was spoken.

  “I know, but why did she say it, Dad?”

  He picked at the measly salmon fillet before him, then pushed his plate away. Maybe later he'd call down to the kitchen and see if they couldn't put together a hot fudge sundae with real ice cream and honest-to-God whipped cream. If he was feeling like a foolish and furtive child, then he might just as well go all the way.

  What a relief it would be when this whole Secret Service operation was over and he didn't have to hear his mother's name or a reference to Hassenfeld every time he picked up the phone. Henry Materro, almost giddy at the prospect of violence upon a matriarch, had kept the Oval Office updated hourly on the situation in Illinois. Apparently

  Bobby Holland and his wife had entered the sanctum sanctorum without so much as a scratch. It was a comfort, all things considered, to know his mother was in such capable hands, even though he didn't give much credence to this threat business.

  People had been threatening Crazy Daisy for years. The old bat positively thrived on it.

  “How are the pork chops?” Angela asked Bobby, who sat across from her at the kitchen table. “Not too dry?”

  “They're perfect,” he said. “What did you put on the carrots?”

  Angela almost choked on the one she was in the process of swallowing. What did she put on the carrots? Bobby never showed the least bit of curiosity about food. It was either edible or not. Usually carrots weren't. He'd scatter them around his plate like a weaselly six-year-old, or hide them under a baked potato skin if one was available. Who did he think he was all of a sudden, the Galloping Gourmet?

  “Butter, some lemon juice, and a little rosemary,” she said. “Plus a teaspoon of lemon zest.” Rod had shown her that nifty little trick.

  Bobby nodded and forked up another orange disk. “They're great.”

  “Thank you.” I think. What was he trying to do, wear her down with kindness? Compliment her until she yelled, “Okay. Uncle. You win. I'll go to bed with you”?

  “What's lemon zest?” he asked.

  That did it. “God, Bobby. What do you care?” She dropped her fork on the plate, then snatched it up, along with her water goblet, and carried them all to the sink. The pork chops were dry, dammit. Like shoe leather. She suspected Daisy Riordan would soon let her know it, too, in no uncertain terms.

  Angela scraped the remains of her dinner into the trash can, aware that her behavior seemed temperamental and pure PMSy. If Bobby even looked as if he were going to mouth those three initials, she was going to shoot him dead right now, then happily spend the next twenty years in prison, hopefully in California, where Rod would visit her once in a while.

  “I'll clean up,” Bobby said, suddenly standing behind her.

  She drew in a long, deep breath. He was good. Ooh, he was good. He was going to reel her in with a few acts of domestic kindness, a few well-placed tidbits of conversation, and then—Bam!—he'd clam up again, just like always.

  “Fine,” she said coolly, setting her scraped plate in the sink and edging away from the radiant heat of his body. “I'll go up and get Mrs. Riordan's tray. Maybe I'll have a chance to scope out that screen porch door.”

  Angela hastened out of the kitchen and up the stairs. It was seven o'clock, still light outside on the western portion of the house, but darkening in the east wing, where Mrs. Riordan's bedroom was located. It was such a lovely house, so comfortable and restrained and quiet. It came close to matching Angela's mental picture of her dream house. If there was an air of clutter here, it was clutter of the nicest sort—framed photographs, fine porcelain pieces, Senate memorabilia, leather-bound books with gilt edges and tasseled bookmarks.

  It was nothing like the clutter in the house where she grew up. There, sweatshirts and jackets dangled from every doorknob, piles of magazines were always spilling across floors, golf balls and pretzels and headless Barbie dolls gathered on end tables. On every staircase, clothes baskets and in-line skates and other lethal toys waited to trip the unsuspecting.

  In the Riordan house, the upholstery in every room picked up on a theme of muted beiges and soft blues. In the Callifano house, couches and armchairs always wore out on an irregular schedule, so the replacements never matched as stripes battled with florals and an endless variety of plaids. Here an air of elegant quiet pervaded each and every room. Back home, if it was quiet, it meant that somebody was up to something. This was a museum. The Callifano house was a circus.

  Maybe she was a changeling, Angela thought. That was the only way she could explain it. The chaos and clamor never bothered anybody else. Her parents were oblivious to the havoc, and her siblings, all eight of them, seemed to thrive on it while Angela couldn't wait to escape.

  It was still the same. Maybe even worse, because, with one glaring exception, the children who moved out were soon bringing back children of their own. At last count, Rose and Angelo Callifano had twenty-seven grandkids. It went without saying that they never missed an opportunity to remind her about number twenty-eight.

  As she passed down the hallway, she switched on a small porcelain lamp that sat on an antique mahogany cabinet. A few steps more, and she knocked on the bedroom door. “Mrs. Riordan?”

  “Come in.”

  The bedroom was already dim, lit only by the light of a television. Angela glanced at the door she assumed opened from the screen porch, and noted the small brass bolt in the locked position. That would have to do for now, she supposed. With Mrs. Riordan always in here, it would be tough getting in to exchange the bolt for something more secure.

  “I've come for your tray, if you're through,” she said, surreptitiously eyeing the leftovers. Oh, brother. The president's mother had taken one bite of her pork chop, chewed it a while, half an hour probably, and returned it to her plate.

  “Your carrots were delicious,” Daisy Riordan said graciously, then added, “Just for future reference, I prefer them julienned.”

  “Yes, ma'am.” Angela hooked some hair ba
ck before reaching for the tray. “I'm sorry about the pork chop. I'll do better next time.”

  Mrs. Riordan gave a small, dismissive wave of her hand. “Speaking of next time,” she said, “I've decided to take my evening meal downstairs in the dining room from now on, Angela. Will you set my place at the foot of the table? That would be at the end nearest the kitchen door.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  Angela managed to keep from looking surprised by the woman's request until she was back out in the hallway with the tray, then she shook her head in amazement. The president's mother had sounded so casual, so matter-of-fact, as if dining downstairs had been her own idea, conjured out of nowhere, completely unrelated to Bobby's comment about her lack of exercise. My God. With that one little murmured observation, he had apparently succeeded in blasting Crazy Daisy out of her stubborn sanctuary.

  He was good. He was positively scary. She reminded herself that this was the same man who had used a lost cat to sweep her off her feet in about ten minutes and who had her saying Yes, she'd marry him, after only knowing him for a little more than forty-eight hours. She was really going to have to keep her guard up while they were here.

  Bobby sat on the wooden bench that circled the inside of the gazebo, watching the pink and orange tints in the western sky. Sunsets depressed the hell out of him because they reminded him of his mother. How she'd loved her sunsets. Wherever they lived, whether it was a dilapidated shack, a rusted-out trailer park, or some smelly spare room in a relative's house, Treena Holland had to have her sunsets. While she pondered the colors of the sinking sun, she'd sing softly to herself or brush her hair with long, languorous strokes or just quietly rock, if she was lucky enough to be someplace with a rocking chair.